Ceramicist and poet Jane Reichhold, has worked with haiku
and other Japanese poetry forms for more than thirty years and
the length and breadth of her writing, teaching, publishing and
translation of haiku, tanka and renga is far too extensive for
me to cover here. Suffice to mention one highlight, Jane's attendance
by invitation from the Emperor and Empress of Japan, to attend
the Imperial New Year's Poetry Party as a guest at the Palace
in Tokyo in 1998. And to refer you to her very comprehensive
website, http://www.ahapoetry.com
which also includes a bibliography of the thirty-something books
Reichhold has authored.

The introduction to 10 years Haikujane details the
circumstances of Reichhold's relocation from Germany to a rural
part of Mendocino County, California during the 1980s. Jane soon
became an active participant in the artistic life of Gualala
town and published her haiku in the local newspaper on a regular
basis. The more than 500 small, three-line poems in this book
have been selected from those published over a period of ten
years in that newspaper. Each poem stands on its own as record
of a moment in the life of the poet and together, they create
the portrait of a woman alive to the minutiae of her surroundings.

Reading the sections of this book, from 1999 through 2008,
I notice so many small events in my life that have until now,
gone unnoticed. Events such as these which are now gifted to
me by the words of the poet,

unrolling
each day
the calla lily (1)

a butterfly pauses
we gaze at each other's
mystery (77)

laying down a path
for the moon to follow
the garden snail (4)

Jane Reichhold does not only look at her world with an aware
artist's eye, she listens to it too. And she also hears and writes
the sounds which I have heard but not taken the time to notice.
She writes taken-for-granted sounds such as those of,

dawn birds
a flotsam of flutes
tangle colors (58)

rolling rrrrs
the voice of the sea
on a rocky beach (10)

night reduced
to a rush of rain
a purring cat (34)

Most of the haiku in Haikujane share the poet's experiences
of the world around her and of which she is so obviously appreciative,
yet some are also tiny capturings of emotions and written with
all the power of carefully worded understatement:

crossing the bridge
all my anger
on the other side (68)

a meeting
on the ancient path
her pregnancy (43)

birth of a girl
the sea is ruffled
with small waves (17)

stretching out
over a summer field
my love for you (22)

2008 saw not only Jane Reichhold's 10 years Haikujane
but also the publication of Basho: The Complete Haiku (Kodansha
International), her translation into English from the Japanese
of all Matsuo Basho's more than 1,000 haiku with accompanying
annotations and explanations. This was the work of many years
and one marvels that Reichhold managed nevertheless, to carve
out moments like these of stillness and regeneration for herself.

afternoon
the awning barely flaps
in the boredom (7)

Sunday church
on the sunny porch
me and a sparrow (44)

a quiet sea
as if made for the moon
to find itself (15)

The reading of my copy of 10 years Haikujane was a
lesson to me to slow down and to take the time to smell the roses
in my garden. It was a lesson to me that it is possible for one
to slow enough to appreciate the life one is living and to yet
still get a lot of work done. Perhaps it is just this sort of
timing-out that energises and enables Jane Reichhold to achieve
the extraordinary levels of work of which she has proved herself
to be capable.